Wow, I'm Impressed!

[SC68Cal]

Hey everyone, I just wanted to rave about OSX. I currently have every program on my dock open. 21 Windows total.

Word, Powerpoint, iTunes (playing), Mail, iPhoto, iMovieHD, iDVD, GarageBand, Adium, Camino, Cashbox, iCal, XCode.

Total memory used is 1 gig, with 600 used, 300 active and 100 wired. About 25% of both processors being used.

Simply amazing, and this system isn't exactly a screamer right now. It's just a shame my graphics card is a bit dated. Hoping to replace it next week with a GoFX5200 card to increase performance.

My question is with these results, I'm having a bit of a graphics slowdown. It's not as fluid as my roomate's laptop is. Is the graphics card with it's puny 16mb of VRAM the main culprit?

 

[ero87]

yeah that's one of my favorite parts of Mac OSX, the stability. Every window in the dock can be open!

 

[ITASOR]

Yeah, it's the 16MB card. I have a 16MB in my Power Mac and moving windows are choppy, as is exposé and dashboard. Doesn't bother me though.

 

[SC68Cal]

Yeah, it's the 16MB card. I have a 16MB in my Power Mac and moving windows are choppy, as is exposé and dashboard. Doesn't bother me though.

It doesn't bother me too much, but for $60 bucks for a Core Image supported graphics card on ebay, why the heck not?

 

[eXan]

DONT get FX5200!!! This card is really bad.

Radeon 9600 might me a bit more expensive, but it's much faster in general and particularly in CoreImage

 

[QCassidy352]

It doesn't bother me too much, but for $60 bucks for a Core Image supported graphics card on ebay, why the heck not?

yeah, definitely go for it. Your graphics card is the culprit for sure. It's cool that such an old mac still runs so wonderfully. I also agree with exan that if you can get a Radeon 9600, that would be a much better option.

 

[SC68Cal]

I didn't find any of those 9600 cards on Ebay that would work in a 2x AGP bus. It seems like my only option would be a 9800 Mac Edition, which is $260. I'm just trying to get core image support for right now. I don't many games, and whatever games I do, I played on the laptop with the same GeforceFX 5200 GO, which was fine for what little gaming I did.

I'd rather put the money more toward a processor, which will improve DVD ripping and MPEG encoding, Xcode compiling, and general productivity tasks rather than a gaming-quality card. I'd like to drop the cash for a Sonnet dual 1.8ghz (drools)

My eventual plan is basically use this powermac as a productivity machine, webhosting (I run a webhosting busniess....move all clients off of Yahoo, pocket the monthly payments for myself), and general daily tasks.

In the meantime, save up money for a mac laptop for when I eventually take a summer abroad in Rome with friends. Figure, by then I'll have figured out all the necessecary SSL and remote login stuff through Apache (which by the way I need to update from 1.3 to 2.2) so I can continue running the website biz while I'm on the other side of the world.

Abitious no?

I feel so proud using the Terminal to change the system's maintanence timings, after briefly learning my way around the Jaguar terminal and then having to completely re-learn it as I upgraded to Tiger. Now my machine runs all of the tasks around lunctime, when the machine is idle, as opposed to early morning (when it's not, as you can see by my posting time )

What's funny, is while all this is going on in the computer part of my life, I'm studying to be a history teacher, instead of going into a computer major, since I spend half my freaking life in office environments for the University along with a few small busniesses as a desk jocky. Damn windows machines. They break, but at least they're around so I get paid.

 

[eXan]

I didn't find any of those 9600 cards on Ebay that would work in a 2x AGP bus.

You don't need 2x AGP version. Radeon 9600 Mac & PC edition will work on all AGP Macs and PCs

 

[ReanimationLP]

You don't need 2x AGP version. Radeon 9600 Mac & PC edition will work on all AGP Macs and PCs

Wrong.

From ATIs spec page :

System Requirements

* Power Mac® G4, G5 from Apple or PC
* AGP* graphics slot available on the motherboard
* 300-Watt power supply or greater recommended

* Compatible with AGP 8X and 4X systems.

 

[eXan]

Wrong.

From ATIs spec page :

System Requirements

* Power Mac® G4, G5 from Apple or PC
* AGP* graphics slot available on the motherboard
* 300-Watt power supply or greater recommended

* Compatible with AGP 8X and 4X systems.

It doesnt really matter if the card on 2x or 4x. The card is backward-compatible. If AGP 8x cards can work seamlessly on G4 system with 4x, then 4x can work with 2x

 

[Mord]

no, your wrong, cards are keyed diffrently

their are 4x/8x cards which the first gap is missing, and 2x/4x cards where both gaps are present, some 8x cards have both gaps and can be modified to work in 2x systems with tape.

 

[SC68Cal]

I also believe the voltage is different in the 2x bus compared to the higher bus speeds.

 

[eXan]

Ok, ok, I give up!!!